Ezo to Hokkaidō
Until 1869 Japan’s northern island was Ezo, the land of the Ainu, with a few Japanese towns on its southern tip. The new Meiji government renamed it Hokkaidō and set out to colonise it. The Ainu were recognised in law as an Indigenous people only in 2019.
Written from cited sourcesLast checked 9 October 2026Suggest a correction
- Ezountil 1869
- Hokkaidō1869–
Ezo
Hokkaidō was long the land of the Ainu.[1] Japanese from Honshu began arriving often in the 16th and 17th centuries, and built towns such as Matsumae, Esashi and Hakodate on the southern tip, while the Ainu lived throughout the interior. The island was then called Matsumae-Ezo.[2]
The explorer Matsuura Takeshirō travelled Ezo from 1845, as far as Sakhalin and the Kuril islands of Kunashiri and Etorofu, and wrote about what he saw.[3] His map of the island’s rivers and villages, drawn over three years for the shogunate, showed the interior in detail.[2]
A new name for a colony
After the Meiji Restoration, the last forces loyal to the old shogunate fled north, and the Hakodate War broke out in southern Ezo in 1868.[2] In 1869 the new government set up a Colonization Commission to run the island and renamed it Hokkaidō.[2] Matsuura, appointed to the commission, coined the name along with other place names in the region, but quit in 1870, unhappy with the direction the commission was taking.[3]
The commission built Sapporo as the capital, brought in settlers from the rest of Japan and hired foreign advisers such as the American Horace Capron.[2] Serious Japanese settlement began, and most Ainu were assimilated.[1]
The Ainu
After 1868 Japanese control tightened, bringing forced assimilation and discrimination.[5] An 1899 measure labelled the Ainu “former Aborigines”.[5] The Ainu language, an isolate, had almost entirely given way to Japanese by the early 21st century, though formal teaching of it began in the 1980s.[5]
On 6 June 2008 both houses of the Diet unanimously asked the government to recognise the Ainu as an Indigenous people, and it did.[4][5] A 2019 law, passed on 19 April, was the first to recognise them as Indigenous in legislation.[4] It added support for regional and tourism projects and eased rules so Ainu can gather from state forests and catch salmon in rivers for their traditional culture.[6] A 2017 Hokkaido survey counted about 13,118 Ainu in Hokkaido.[6]
Timeline
1845
Matsuura in Ezo
The explorer begins mapping the island.[3]
1868
Hakodate War
Shogunate loyalists make a last stand in southern Ezo.[2]
1869
Hokkaidō
The Colonization Commission is set up and Ezo is renamed.[2]
1899
“Former Aborigines”
The Ainu are officially labelled “former Aborigines”.[5]
20086 June 2008
Recognised
The Diet unanimously calls the Ainu an Indigenous people.[4]
201919 April 2019
The Ainu law
Parliament passes the first law recognising the Ainu as Indigenous.[4]
More name changes
Sources
- [1]Hokkaido · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- [2]Permanent exhibit of the Archives of Hokkaido (1) · Archives of Hokkaido, Hokkaido Government
- [3]Matsuura Takeshiro · Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures, National Diet Library
- [4]Overview of the Ainu Policy Promotion Act of 2019 · Foreign Press Center Japan (Teruki Tsunemoto, Hokkaido University) · 2019
- [5]Ainu · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- [6]Ainu policy · Cabinet Secretariat, Government of Japan
Map geometry from Natural Earth via world-atlas. See credits.